Remember the Samchillian Tip Tip Tip Cheeepeee - the crazy looking MIDI keyboard system built from a hacked, painted ergonomic QWERTY keyboard? Eitan Shefer, an industrial designer from Jerusalem, liked the concept so much that he redesigned it as his final year project. He's made a really great video [google video link] which explains the whole thing, including the relative keyboard layout - you don't press a key to get a specific note, but to get one relative to the note playing at the moment. Great for widdly guitar solos, not (I think) so great for chords. Full details of the project are on Eitan's website. Also on the Samchillian tip (ha!), this page has some interesting videos of Leon (the inventor) playing a $$$ Yamaha Disklavier grand piano with the Samchillian.

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

anyone know of a relative keyboard plugin for normal keyboards? as a midi plugin in cubase or something? would be a good semi-random tune-generating interactive toy.

For my personal taste, though, it seems the conventional keyboard works quite well for playing individual notes. What I miss is deeper timbral control and the ability to bend pitch. I'd rather develop the ribbon controller concept and other control schemes than just play faster arpeggios. The latter I can do by practicing, but the former really does require new interfaces.

On Peter's note, I'd like to see better aftertouch (like on a per-key basis) and keys which are responsive to pressure on the lateral axes (side-to-side, front-to-back) to add more dimensions of control.

Right now I would encourage everyone to boycott Israel for their terror against the country they invaded from 1949 till this day. They haven't adjusted to a single FN resolution. It's a pitty, since 1/3 of the Israeli people actually are against the occupation! The controller looks strange, though. Peace

Right now I would encourage everyone to boycott Israel for their terror against the country they invaded from 1949 till this day. They haven't adjusted to a single FN resolution. It's a pitty, since 1/3 of the Israeli people actually are against the occupation! The controller looks strange, though. Peace

This site is about gear not politics, keep your stupid thoughts to yourself. Anyway, looks like it could develop into a very cool product someday.

drben - check out Leon's site: samchillian.com - for a samchillian software implementation. it looks quite complicated, and un-intuitive, but you can get some good results from it (I use it running thru midiyoke to drive reason3.0)

http://samchillian.com/standalonepc.html

deeco - that's a good point, when you have limited key options, and you are always on the right key, musicaly interesting solo leads are relativly easy, even for people with little to no traditional background.

when I was playing arround with the samchillian software at the studio in the academy - it was fun to put a drum loop and a bass loop and just play arround on the right key. it seemed to yield interesting results.

peter - the conventional keyboard is great for a lot of things. however, it's not perticularly good as a live preformance instrument (compared with, a guitar, for example). Also, the learning curve for playing fast solos is pretty steap. the samchillian approach works well for those kind of uses - since it limits you to a key, and the scope of moving your hands is small too - it's very effective for FAST playing. it sucks at playing chords or playing from regular notation, granted, but it opens a potential for interesting musical expressions - that's the really interesting aspect of that approach.

the live preformance aspect dictated a lot of the design decisions, a wearable object on a strap, leaning on the belly (which means the hands dont get tired holding the object, and are reletivly free to play it)

anyways, cool comments (well the relevant ones, anyway) I like the one about the vegina especialy. (you can't get closer to the definition of a "desirable product" then that..:-)

One thing's for sure.It's a lot easier to play this keyboard when you don't have polio.Of course, the cure for polio was invented by a Jew too. Being thankful is something you sometimes have to spend energy on.

"Boycotts do nothing except hurt the people totally uninvolved. No country or people should ever boycott any other country or people, 99% of the time you end up hurting the ones you set out to protect."

1. If you do some research you will find this important to non-music related issues... David Sykes (sp?.) Jaques Picqot agreement dating from around 1912. *Please see:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/sykes.htm

2. a bunch of the chips inside yr computer were designed in Israel---Intel etc. A country which reportedly employs one out of three professionals as some form of engineer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#Economy

My point being the issue is not so clear and really dated from post-victorian and Imperialist concerns and D. Sykes' prescient vision of a hydrocarbon fuels based economy. So, There!!!!! Thought I'd muddy the issue for the uninformed. 'sides im a crappy musician ;)

it reminds me a lobster. sounds amazing and great! would be fun just to play around...

an idea: your intervals are +-1234 / +-0567. You could make these custumizeable to approach a desired scale (xMaj, xMin, xAny). so not everything would sound just like a jazzy lead guitar. and one could play other styles as well.

another idea: you could enhance it and add chord functionality, buttons operated by the thumbs. sort of accordion mode, giving some preset chords or intervals. holding the key(s) would be holding the chord. on the other hand this could in a way break up the simplicity and beauty of the concept.

As far as chords, wouldn't it be fairly easy to set up keys/buttons to play a relative note to the one being played without changing that note? For example, a "power chord" button that just plays the fifth of whatever note is being played.

That's a great idea, how do you come up with that stuff? I'm a writer, and just learning the keyboard so I don't know any of the technical stuff about the keyboard. You probably can't play all the tunes right? It's probably just a toy for people to play not actually play real tunes.